The Dodo Archive

Mountain Lions Sound Like Nothing You'd Ever Imagine

If you're a male mountain lion, this is the sweetest sound in the world: a female mountain lion calling for a mate.

If you're not a male mountain lion - well, we'll let you be the judge. The video below shows a female mountain lion in heat, and the sound is borderline unearthly. While it has its own sort of beauty, it could also easily be mistaken for a terrified human's screams. Or a ghost.

Listen below - but make sure to turn your volume down.

Of course, those calls serve a very important purpose. While mountain lions aren't officially considered threatened, wild populations are facing increasing risks from habitat loss and retaliatory hunting from livestock owners. So hopefully this female's search paid off, and she found someone to father a new generation of little mountain lion cubs.

And they're not only animals who make such a surprising sound. Mountain lions sound fairly similar to foxes, who also have the whole "screaming woman" thing going on.

So next time you're alone in the woods and think you hear a ghost, rest assured: It's probably just a mountain lion.